THE CLIMATE CHANGERS

THESE PLACES ARE LEADING THE WAY TO A FUTURE FREE OF FOSSIL FUELS

- Jack Ewing, Alice Klein, Gavin Haines and Lucy Wildman

WHERE EVS RULE THE ROAD

Norway has embraced battery-powered vehicles. The air is cleaner, the streets are quieter and the electrical grid hasn't collapsed.

About 177 kilometers south of Oslo, along a highway lined with pine and birch trees, a shiny fuelling station offers a glimpse of a future where electric vehicles rule. Chargers far outnumber gasoline pumps at the service area operated by the retail chain Circle K.

Marit Bergsland, who works at the store, has had to learn how to help frustrated customers connect to chargers in addition to her regular duties flipping burgers and ringing up purchases. "Sometimes we have to give them a coffee to calm down," she says.

In 2023, 82 per cent of new-car sales in Norway were electric, putting the country at the vanguard of the shift to battery-powered mobility. It has also turned Norway into an observatory for figuring out what the electric vehicle revolution might mean for the environment, workers and life in general.

The country has set a goal of ending all sales of new cars powered by internal combustion engines this year.

Norway's experience suggests that electric vehicles bring benefits without the dire consequences predicted by some critics. There are problems, of course, including unreliable chargers and long waits during periods of high demand. The switch has reordered the auto industry, making Tesla the bestselling brand and marginalizing established carmakers like Mitsubishi, Peugeot and Ford.

But the air in Oslo, Norway's capital, is measurably cleaner. And as noisier gasoline and diesel vehicles are scrapped, the city is quieter. Oslo's greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 28 per cent since 2009, yet there has not been mass unemployment among gas station workers and the electrical grid has not collapsed.